Lost to Aurora
by DiamondCurve
Summary: Oneshot set a day after the defeat of the Crawler. The Queen travels to Aurora to ensure the safety of her beloved, only to find the place in ruins, its people stranded. Has her love survived, or been slain by the shadows? Reviews appreciated!


Hi guys! This is, essentially, a quick oneshot I wrote after playing Fable III for far too long when I _probably_ should've been revising for some exams. I've kind of gone with the idea that during the final battle across Albion with the Crawler and the shadows etc., something similar was going on in Aurora. Oh, and I've also skipped the actual fighting since a) I've not practised writing huge, epical battle scenes and b) because it was really meant to be about the Hero's experience, lol. Anyway, I hope you like; reviews are sincerely appreciated!

Rated T just to be on the safe side. Don't want any kiddies getting hurt! xD

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own Fable or any of the official works attributed to it. Though, if I did, it'd be pretty darn awesome.**

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**Lost to Aurora**

The night was dark.

Well, of course it was _dark. _But it wasn't the sort you'd expect. There was something in the air, a kind of electricity. Things felt _alive._ The shadows felt alive. Something was moving, coming... coursing towards Aurora like blood running through a vein. The earth was thick with it.

Soon.

Soon, it would arrive.

And utter destruction would begin.

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She ran. She ran down the easy slope towards the heart of the city. She ran through cramped alleyways, over dusty streets, past crippled soldiers... she didn't stop.

She couldn't.

She couldn't until she knew he was safe.

A beggar stretched his hand towards her at the last moment to catch her gown. It tore off with the motion. He stared at it in wonder, running the silky texture along his fingertips, inhaling the scent of sand and heat and smoke. His eyes filled unexpectedly with tears. This gown had seen hell. The wearer had seen much worse.

She didn't look back. Her lungs were aching now: through the marketplace she had ran, a ruined heap of stone compared to what it had been just a night before. The people had looked confused. Many of them wandered with their arms outstretched, faces turned towards heaven, mouthing silently; 'why?'

She knew why. Of all people, she knew best. She couldn't care right now. She had to see him. He had to be alive.

The smooth flight of stairs leading up to the temple took an age to climb. Every breath felt like inhaling steam. Sweat ran freely down her forehead, her dirtied face, her bloodstained clothes. It might have washed away all that had happened. It might have lifted the stain the day's events had smeared there. It did none of these things.

Finally, she reached the top. Her entire body burned. She was panting, heavy gulps that did nothing to satisfy. He had to be here. Not amongst the ruins of the city, no; amongst the priests, the holy men, the scripture that he had practised daily. He would be here. He would.

She staggered forward and leant her palm against the cool stone of the arched doorway. It felt so firm. It was secure. It was not delicate, so easily reduced to nothing but rubble and ash, like the town below. It was a safe place, a place of life. He was _alive._

Determination seized her and she continued, through a short corridor into the temple's main hall. The scorching heat was at once vanquished, replaced by the soft light of a thousand luminescent candles, lining three of the walls. The alter was just ahead. She saw a troupe of men, men in long gowns and jewels, surrounding it. Some of them were on their knees, obviously in prayer. Two more stood silently alongside, heads bowed, a picture of reflection. She approached cautiously, eyes searching for the one who belonged to her. He was here. He was here.

As she drew near one of the men stopped and saw her. His face contorted into something not quite like pity, not quite like fear. He motioned to his brethren, hissed something in a foreign, exquisite tongue and suddenly everything was silent. They were all looking at her, all of them. A few could not meet her gaze. She fought the mounting horror at the pit of her stomach and marched forward, stopping face-to-face with the high-priest of Aurora.

His rich brown eyes were boring into hers. His wrinkled skin carried the weight of regret along each contour. As the silence continued, he struggled desperately for the right words. The right words to announce the obvious. The inevitable.

_No..._

"Your Majesty..." he began quietly. They were in a temple, after all. A temple was a place of respect, of worship.

"I must say, with the deepest sympathies..."

_Of stillness._

"...afraid that Baren was... taken, by the shadows, in the battle waged in Aurora last night."

Time stood still for a moment. It was so, so quiet in the temple. The candles... the candles whispered to her. Their flames danced: little tongues speaking an ancient language and only she could hear them. What were they saying?

Oh, of course. A light has been lost. It was smothered, extinguished by a black, poisonous fog that had snatched it with barely a breath's pause before swallowing another, and another. How many lights had been stifled by the same deadly hand? How many others were grieving for their fallen? She had put an end to it; that much was certain. She could kill, oh yes. She had been trained her whole life to kill, to slaughter, to fight. A warrior would bow to the likes of her.

_But you cannot raise the dead._

"I cannot raise the dead..."

She had clearly interrupted whatever the high-priest had been saying. Now he was looking at her with a gravity that threatened to throw her from this room and into the beyond. She couldn't stand it. She hated every single one of them. She needed to escape, before she killed them all.

Outside was still a blinding furnace of sand and heat. She fell to her knees, a cry breaching her lips. From a distance, it may have seemed that she had been overcome by prayer, a hallucination or a vision of some kind. It was greatly at odds with the cavernous emptiness beginning to fill her insides.

She had lost. She had lost him, everything. He was her everything.

Everything had been lost to Aurora.


End file.
